Most time spent?: Microsoft sites, Google must thank YouTube

Yes, Google maybe the biggest search engine, by far. But do you know why Google is rolling out all these new services, almost a new one every day? Because they are still trailing Microsoft when it comes to to spent time on the internet. Comscore numbers now show us the reason Google is trying to get you to go to different Google sites: Microsoft still holds nearly 15% share of all attention worldwide.

In September 2009 in total 27 billion hours were spent on the internet worldwide. And this is "only" by 1.2 billion users over the age of 15. 14,5% of that time was spent on Microsoft sites, Google made it to 9.3 percent, still a total of 2.5 billion hours. Nearly half of that time was spent on YouTube.

If you look at the changes over the past year both Google and Microsoft grew about 40% when it comes to time spent online. The biggest 'winner' however is (again) Facebook. They gained 193% going up to 1,4 billion hours of usage.

Comscore also looked at the regional differences. In Europe Microsoft was the biggest also, holding 16,8% of share of total time spent online. Google (9,6%) and Facebook (6,6%) follow.

The numbers might not seem that surprising but it still is another indication of why Google is working so hard to get new products out there. To get more ads sold you need more users looking at your ads. If you can keep them on your sites, which doesn't have to be your biggest site, you can show them your ads. Therefore you need users to stay on your sites. Google is aiming for Microsoft in this. But isn't there yet. It does however show the importance of YouTube.